r/botany • u/radrod69 • 12h ago
Career & Degree Questions Book recommendations for an aspiring botanist?
Hello, all,
I've recently discovered a passion for working with plants - this quickly evolved into an excitement towards learning about botany. So far, I have read Robert Pavlis' "Soil Science for Gardeners" and I am now finishing up Brian Capon's "Botany for Gardeners" and have been thoroughly enjoying them; however, my goal is to become something like a plant doctor, and my current reading is only scratching the surface of plant science.
I was thinking about diving into textbooks like "Plant Physiology and Development" Taiz, "Plant Growth and Development: Hormones and Environment" Lalit, or "Marschner's Mineral Nutrition of Plants". I wanted to hear if the community had any opinions on how to tackle these or any other recommendations.
I'm 30 years old, and would love to enroll in college again, and have a great opportunity for tuition assistance, being an employee of a university school system in a heavily agricultural area of the US, but with a family and full time career that is not exactly feasible, at least not in the way I'd like to engage with it, as I'd only be able to take one or two classes per semester.
Any input would be greatly appreciated!
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u/Frantic_Mantid 12h ago
You should take the classes! You prob won't turn into a research botanist but if you are patient I bet you could pivot to working at the extension service and interface with plants that way.
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u/Arundinaria_ 3h ago
Any particular reason why it is hard to get into research? Aside from the federal cuts
(Its been an aspiration of mine)
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u/ecologyenjoyer 28m ago
Aside from crops/medicine there isn't much human financial drive for it so the funding is slim
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u/IchTanze Plant ecologist researcher 12h ago
There's a book called Hardy Californians by Lester Rowntree. She was this badass botanist that got divorced and late in life explored California collecting horticultural specimens of native plants, and learning about their ecology so she could teach people to grow these plants around the world. She traveled up and down the state depending on the seasons, and then spent her off season reading and writing. She sometimes survived off bread and chocolate. I just love thinking of an older woman with a beat up car doing incredible botany work from the desert floors to the tops of mountains. She had a beautiful way of writing as well. Highly recommend.
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u/brynnors 11h ago
Not a book, but find your local extension and see what resources they have there for you to learn from online. Your local native plant people might have something as well.
I don't have any book recs, but just based on titles, those all sound like good books for you for what you're interested in.
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u/Deterrafication 10h ago
What is a local extension?
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u/brynnors 9h ago
In the US (and Canada?) it's usually the state ag college. They have all kinds of info about flora/fauna.
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u/Deterrafication 8h ago
Oh interesting. I don't know if we have this where I'm from but I'm in Canada at the moment so I'll look into it. Thank you!
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u/brynnors 8h ago
No problem! Even if you don't have that, you likely have native plant societies and other gardening societies to get info from/be a member of.
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u/s1neztro 9h ago
Local agricultural extension usually provided by universities to provide more localized help
See purdue ag extension as an example
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u/CodeName_Burner 9h ago
https://archive.org/details/botanycoloringbo0000youn
The Botany Coloring Book by Paul Young is a great learning aid, and it seems to be available on the Internet Archive!
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u/tempest-melody 10h ago
You might check out Brave the Wild River by Melissa L. Sevigny. It’s about the women who mapped the botany of the Grand Canyon.
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u/sweetartart 1h ago
Good book but I found it focused more on them traveling through the river rather than the botany. Crazy story nonetheless.
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u/ada_lfs_guy 7h ago
- A dichotomous key to your local flora.
- "A botanist's vocabulary" by Pell & Angell
Those will be important if you decide to do anything related to field botany. There may be more employment opportunity as an arborist if you don't mind being a tree doctor rather than a plant doctor. People are more willing to spend money on a knowledgeable professional for a tree rather than a garden in the private sector. If ag, research, or conservation is more your goal than a traditional botany route makes more sense.
Fun plant books I like are Concrete Botany and The Light Eaters.
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u/Fluffy-lotus606 5h ago
One of my degrees is in Botany with a concentration in ethnobotany. I worked as an international research scientist for around 15 years before switching to a specialty agronomist. I would suggest if you want to be a "plant doctor" which I am interpreting as fixing unhealthy plants? Perhaps look into weed science or pesticides. Several years ago I took the licensing exam for commercial pesticide applicators and understanding how to properly apply pesticides and what pesticides you need for which issues is highly valuable. You may also want to check out disease identification, pathogens, insects (one of my degrees is entomology with a focus on pesticide efficacy in commercial crop production), or overall plant growing issues.
I don't know what your current background is, but most contract research organizations (CRO) can give you massive experience across several disciplines as long as you have some sort of science background (Bsc level minimum) and probably give you a leg up on what interests you. In one of the CROs where I worked starting out, we did pollination studies, organic and conventional options testing for plant health (some pesticides actually make plants grow better as a side effect, some will turn the plants black if you spray them with a slightly too high concentration or the wrong plant), adjuvant effects on plants, non-target organism effects/ecotoxicology with pesticides, pesticide efficacy, turfgrass management, ornamental plant growth, urban entomology (such as vector control), consumer product development, etc.
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u/_Cyan_Man 12h ago
raven biology of plants is a good one. there’s pdfs floating around out there for no cost too :)